The persistent challenge of defining and implementing truly ethical artificial intelligence in the real world. The piece opens by noting that while fictional constructs like Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics offer simple, rule-based visions of machine morality, the real world is far more complex. Real-world ethical dilemmas involve conflicting values, ambiguities, and uncertainties that can’t be resolved with a fixed set of rigid laws. The article argues that the dream of easily “hardwiring” ethics into AI is illusory because ethical principles often contradict one another in practice.
A central theme is how deeply rooted ethical complexity is in everyday decisions—illustrated by classic philosophical problems like the trolley dilemma, where even humans struggle to agree on the morally “right” choice. This uncertainty mirrors the broader difficulty of creating AI that can navigate ethical tradeoffs, since different contexts, cultures, and individual values shape what counts as ethical behavior. The author suggests that expecting AI to reliably make ethical decisions is unrealistic as long as humans themselves cannot agree on what constitutes ethical action.
The article also highlights how modern AI systems are adaptive rather than rule-based. Unlike simple logic machines, contemporary AI learns from data and societal patterns, which means they absorb and reflect the values and biases present in the environments they’re trained on. This adaptive nature makes simple ethical codes inadequate because AI decisions emerge from complex learning processes shaped by human culture and behavior rather than from explicit instructions alone.
Finally, the piece emphasizes that ethics for AI must be culturally learned and sustained, not just programmed. Ethical values must be nurtured through ongoing human engagement, debate, and societal norms rather than assumed to be automatically embodied in technology. The author urges deeper reflection on the limits of technical solutions and highlights the need for human responsibility in guiding how AI systems evolve ethically within society.
